As a general rule, leaders should respond to criticism. I do my best to do so, or at that very least, ask someone in my organization to respond. Critics, more often than not, deserve a response. They need to hear from the leader who can give them his or her perspective. They need to hear from a leader in the event the response can be an opportunity for reconciliation. But there are times when leaders should not respond to critics.

One of the biggest drains of our time is technology because of the access it gives us to a virtual life. Our lives revolve around this access and its pull on us is strong. There’s always email to check, texts to respond to, statuses to update, images and videos to see or post. And they must be done right away (or so we think) — putting everything else on pause.

I, too, found I don’t get much out of sermons, even the good ones. Honestly, there is not much new content I learn at church. Finally, I am easily distracted and the slow pace of sermons let’s my mind wander, so I’d rather read a good sermon than listen to one. So, I could’ve just stayed home. But, I didn’t. And neither should you because our church involvement is not just anticipated (1 Corinthians 12:27), but commanded (Hebrews 10:25).

What what if celebrating Valentine’s Day didn’t cost you a dime and could actually re-kindle the flames of romance? What if you could re-ignite the sparks in your marriage and make them last? It might be as easy as taking a trip down memory lane and doing what you should have never stopped.

I wonder, though, if Miller’s thoughts don’t say as much about our contemporary worship culture as they do about Miller himself. His description of a church gathering is two-dimensional: we listen to a lecture and sing songs that connect us to God. Miller says he stopped attending because he doesn’t learn from lectures and doesn’t feel like he connects to God through singing. This description of the gathered church is anemic and shabby, but it’s also the description that many American evangelicals would use to describe Sunday mornings. Rather than a robust engagement with God’s people, God’s word, and God’s Spirit through interactions with one another, songs, prayers, scripture readings, and the Lord’s Supper, we think of Sundays as merely preaching and music.

It’s that time of year again, time to share my top lists of the year. Tomorrow I’ll share my top 12 books of the year and on Thursday, I’ll share my top 12 albums of the year. Today though, it is the top 12 posts I wrote in 2012:

Leaders get all kinds of criticism, but anonymous criticism is incredibly common, especially in churches.

It could be in notes sent. It could be in a conversation that goes like this:

Person: Hey Josh, I was talking with some friends.

Me: Oh, about what?

Person: Well, they just aren’t happy. They don’t like ____________.

Me: Well, I’d love to talk with them and find out how to fix the situation or talk about how we can move forward or why we do what we do. Can you give me their names.

Person: Oh, I can’t do that. I told them I wouldn’t tell you their names. I don’t want to break their trust.

Every pastor right now is thinking, “I’ve had that conversation 100 times.”

What do you do?

My response typically is:

I appreciate your feedback (normally when someone says, “Me and some friends are concerned or angry” they typically mean, “I’m concerned or angry”), but unless I know who they are or I’m able to talk with them, there’s nothing I can do about it.